


Petits Moments

by fraternite



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (probably all three of them are aro-ace), (you can assume anyone i write is until proven otherwise), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-College/Graduate School, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family member death in chapter 5, Gen, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, platonic intimacy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 14:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1230238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraternite/pseuds/fraternite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love isn't found only in grand gestures and dramatic declarations--it's also there in the small things, the little moments people share as they go through life together.  A touch on the wrist; an evening sitting together in comfortable silence; someone who knows your breakfast order without you saying it; someone who's there when you're crying.</p><p>And this is just as true for platonic love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. cheveux

**Author's Note:**

> In the interests of celebrating nonsexual intimacy and platonic relationships in general, I'm going to try using the collection of nonsexual ways to be intimate with someone found here (http://takethewatch.tumblr.com/post/73943538760/nonsexual-ways-to-be-intimate-with-someone) as prompts for various drabbles. If I like them enough, I'll post them here (if I hate them, they will just be warmup exercises). I will probably write about lots of different characters but AroAce!Enjolras has a special place in my heart and Enjolras and Combeferre taking care of each other is one of my favorite tropes in this fandom so this drabble is probably fairly par for the course.

Enjolras, intent on the paper he was writing, didn’t notice for quite some time that something was bothering him.  Even when he realized that half the reason for his frustration with with the argument he was responding to was that something physical was annoying him, he didn’t know what it was; he’d been blocking out his physical surroundings so intently that he couldn’t make himself instantly aware of them again.  He wasn’t hungry--well, all right, a little, but not enough to be distracting--and he’d been steadily drinking a big tumbler of water along with his mug of coffee, so it wasn’t that he was thirsty, either.  Unable to determine the cause of his annoyance, he returned his attention to his paper, and only ten minutes later, as he brushed his bangs out of his face once again, did it hit him: His hair kept falling into his eyes.

He got up from the table and went into the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror.  When had his hair gotten so long?  (Well, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had it cut, so perhaps surprise was not the appropriate reaction to its length.)  It was shaggy and curled around his ears and the nape of his neck in a way that made him look unpleasantly like a 14-year-old wannabe skater.  He got out a comb and tried to slick it back from his face with water, but even Enjolras’s largely indifferent eyes could see that it was not a fashionable look.  Nor was it going to keep the hair out of his eyes for long.

 

It was time to get it cut.  But going to a barber would take forever--and anyway it was a quarter to midnight and he wanted to take care of the problem now so he could go back to writing his paper without the extra annoyance.  And Enjolras hated paying into the beauty industry, especially twenty dollars for a few snips of scissors when all he wanted to do with his hair was have less of it.  He frowned at his reflection, assessing, then went to Combeferre’s desk to search for scissors.

Combeferre came home to find Enjolras still standing in front of the bathroom mirror, holding the scissors and staring at his reflection.  An inch-wide section of his bangs had been snipped off, the fallen hair lying in the sink basin, but he hadn’t gotten any farther.

“Are you cutting your own hair?”  Combeferre asked, slipping behind him to get at his contact solution.

“I was going to.  It’s . . . I thought it would be easy, but I have no idea what I’m doing.”  Enjolras stepped aside so Combeferre could have the mirror to take out his contacts.  “It seems like it should be simple, right?  But then as soon as I started I got cold feet.  It’s so . . . permanent.  I mean, not really, it grows back.  But I don’t want to look like an idiot for six weeks or however long hair takes to grow out.”

“I’d imagine it’d be pretty challenging to cut your own hair and have it come out well--especially since you can’t see the back.”  Combeferre rubbed his eyes with a contented groan.  “God, I had those in way too long.”  He blinked several times and groped on the counter for his glasses.

“Here,” Enjolras put them in his hand.

“Thanks.”  He settled the glasses on his nose.  “Do you want me to cut it for you?”

“Would you?” Enjolras asked eagerly.  “It’s not a big deal, it’s just that it was getting in my eyes and driving me crazy, and I couldn’t focus.”

“I can try.”  Combeferre hesitated.  “I actually don’t know if I’ve ever cut someone’s hair before.  I . . . can’t promise it’ll come out very great.  You might want to get Courfeyrac to do it.”

“I just want it shorter and not massively uneven, that’s literally all I want.  I have no doubt you can do that.  It’s so curly it’ll even itself out anyway.”

“That’s true.  Here, let’s go to the kitchen, there’s more space there.  Grab a towel to put around your shoulders.”

They pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and Enjolras sat with an old towel around his shoulders as Combeferre ran the comb through his hair, gently tugging out the tangles.  He filled a glass at the sink and used the water to wet down Enjolras’s hair in an attempt to tame it a bit.  The water was warm against Enjolras’s scalp at first, then quickly cooled.

“How short do you want it?” Combeferre asked him.

“Um.  Shorter than Courf’s.  Maybe about the length Feuilly has his?”

“Okay.  I’ll do my best.”

“You’ll be fine.  I trust you.”  Enjolras grinned up at him, and Combeferre, smiling, pushed his head back to face forward.

“Don’t move while I’m cutting, I’ll take your ear off.”  He ran his fingers through Enjolras’s hair a few more times, pulling one lock of hair straight and then letting it spring back without cutting it.  Finally, he opened the scissors and slowly cut across a lock of hair.

The night was dark against the windows, the small room silent except for the scrape of the scissors and the humming of the refrigerator.  The linoleum was cold under Enjolras’s bare feet.  Combeferre snipped off another lock of hair, and the dam curls slithered against the nape of Enjolras’s neck before drifting down to the floor.

“How was your day?” Enjolras asked as Combeferre moved methodically around to the side of his head.

“Not bad.  Long, but when it is even not?  I got to get outside for a bit at lunchtime; that was nice.  The little garden area they’re putting in at the hospital, the one they started back in the fall, it’s almost done now.  The statues are still sitting there just inside the gate, all wrapped up in plastic, and the fountain’s not running yet, but there’s a picnic table there, and some bushes and a little tree.  And it was so warm out today, almost like spring weather.”

“That sounds really nice.”

“It was.  I think I’m going to try to eat lunch there every day, at least whenever I’m on the day rotation.  I felt so much better just getting out in the fresh air for a while.”  Combeferre moved around to the other side of Enjolras’s head.  “How was your day?”

“Stressful.  I had a meeting with Professor Byron about the independent study I want to do next semester, instead of that ridiculous seminar, and she didn’t seem particularly keen on the idea.  I think they think I’m just trying to get out of the seminar--”

“--which you are,” put in Combeferre.

“Which I _am_ ,” Enjolras agreed.  “But with good reason, that seminar subject is completely irrelevant to anything I’m ever going to do with this degree.  And it’s not like I picked some blow-off subject for an easy three credits; that independent study would be a ton of work, a lot more than the seminar would be.”

“Are they going to let you do it?”

“They haven’t decided yet.  I have to write a detailed proposal arguing why the subject I picked is worthy of a three-credit independent study and outlining in more detail what materials I would use and what I would do with them.”

“That sounds like a good sign,” Combeferre said, gently untucking Enjolras’s curls from behind his ear.  “Surely they wouldn’t make you go to all the work of planning it out if they were just using the whole proposal thing to placate you before saying no.”

Enjolras tried to suppress his involuntary flinch at the sound of the scissors right next to his ear.  “I hope so.  Because the last thing I need is to put hours into planning a semester-long class that isn’t even going to happen.”

“That’s true.  Stop talking, now; I need your face to not be moving.”  Combeferre crouched down in front of Enjolras, frowning at his hair.  “I’m not sure this is entirely even.”

“‘m sure i’s close enou’,” Enjolras mumbled, trying to speak without moving his face.

Combeferre scowled critically, then moved over to Enjolras’s right to take off a little more.  Returning to the front, he drew the comb through Enjolras’s bangs a few times, then gently stretched them out.  Enjolras closed his eyes as the scissors snicked through his hair, sending hair clippings fluttering down his face.  They tickled Enjolras’s nose, and he tried to focus on the sensation of hair against his bare feet and the sound of the scissors as Combeferre continued across his bangs.  Combeferre’s hand brushed his cheek, and more hair clippings tumbled down into Enjolras’s lap.

“All right, go take a look,” Combeferre said after a minute.  

Enjolras opened his eyes and stood up, carefully removing the towel from his shoulders and brushing the worst of the hair clippings from his clothes onto the linoleum.  He stepped carefully around the hair and went into the bathroom.

“I hope it’s okay,” Combeferre called from the kitchen. “I think it came out a little shorter than you wanted it, but it was uneven and I had to straighten it out.  If you see anywhere it’s still uneven, let me know and I’ll try to fix it.”

Enjolras studied himself in the mirror, trying to turn far enough to see the back of his head.  It was a fine haircut--nothing particularly fashionable or interesting, just a general shortening all around--which meant it was exactly what he’d wanted.  “It looks great, absolutely fine.  Thank you, Ferre.”  He ran his fingers through his curls, enjoying how different and short they felt.  

Combeferre came into the bathroom behind him.  “Wait, there’s one piece of hair I missed in the back, it’s about half an inch longer than everything around it.  Come back into the kitchen for a minute.”

“It’s fine,” Enjolras protested, but he stepped back into the kitchen and let Combeferre do a few last adjustments.  “Thank you,” he said again, when Combeferre was satisfied.  “I really appreciate it.”

“Any time.”  Combeferre pulled the dustpan and broom from the cupboard, but Enjolras took it from him.

“You’ve had a long day, go take your shower.  I’ll take care of this.”  He shoed Combeferre out and bent to sweep up the piles of hair clippings, marveling at just how much hair had been on his head.  A few minutes later, he was sitting back down at his computer to finish to essay, his vision beautifully hair-free.  In the background, the old pipes whined as the hot water for the shower rushed through them, and he could just hear Combeferre singing quietly.  After the brief break, the argument he was opposing seemed both less annoying and more easily refutable, and the whole essay a less daunting task.


	2. dormir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this one was "watching someone sleep." It sort of became a road trip drabble but I'm okay with that because I think road trips--being in a small space with someone, being together for hours at a time, eating together and on the same schedule . . . all the little details of life that you share on a trip--are a kind of platonically intimate situation as well. It's one reason why I like road tripping with people so much.

The highway rumbled away beneath the little red car, the miles flying by without anything really seeming to change.  They were at the part of the trip where the highway wound its way through endless woods in big lazy curves, where everything became a featureless blurr and the blue signs that flashed past every few miles were empty of any attractions beyond the occasional gas station.  As he drove along the mostly empty stretch of road, Enjolras imagined they were stuck in some kind of glitch in the universe that had them driving over the same five miles of road in an endless loop.

It was no wonder Combeferre had fallen asleep, he thought.  On such a boring stretch of highway, it was hard to stay alert even when you were driving--and Combeferre had had a busy few weeks.  Even this trip wasn’t really for pleasure--they were attending an international relations conference that had happened to coincide with Combeferre’s first break in weeks--but maybe he’d get a little relaxation out of it anyway.

Enjolras glanced over at his friend, curled up in the passenger seat with his knees pulled up to his chest.  Combeferre’s glasses were askew on his face, his mouth half open.  He leaned against the car door, his head bumping against the window every time the car hit one of the cracks in the weathered pavement.  (It was a testament to how deeply exhausted he must be; that couldn’t be comfortable.)  One arm was tucked under his neck and the other hand had been holding the cell phone that was their GPS, the windshield mount having been lost on a previous trip; now it hung empty, the phone somewhere on the floor.

It was good to see Combeferre relaxed for once.  He’d been working hard--too hard--the past few weeks, trying to balance clinicals and working on the Amis’ latest social media campaign and helping his parents out with issues related to his uncle’s death.  It was a lot to handle at once, and to make things harder, it all centered on interacting with other people.  Combeferre was good with people, but not in the effortless way Courfeyrac was; Combeferre had to work at it, forcing himself to begin conversations when he would rather sit in silence, always thinking about what he could say next to continue the conversation to guide it in a profitable direction.  He probably fooled most people, but Enjolras could always see the conscious efforts he was making.

Enjolras was careful to keep his focus on the road as the evening darkened around the car, but he couldn’t help but steal a glance at Combeferre from time to time--just to make sure he was still asleep.  It was silly, maybe, but just seeing him curled up against the window, his scrubs traded for an old sweatshirt and jeans, his face a little less tense than when he was awake--seeing it and knowing how much he needed the rest--made Enjolras happy.

Combeferre didn’t stir until more than an hour later, when Enjolras pulled into a gas station.  He got out of the car quietly and filled the tank, but when he got back in, Combeferre was awake and yawning.

“How long was I asleep for?” he asked fuzzily as Enjolras pulled the car over to the side of the building.

“About two and a half hours,” Enjolras told him.  “I think you fell asleep around when we crossed the state line.”

“Oh.  Wow.”  Combeferre rubbed his eyes, and Enjolras could see his face relax a little as the mental scale where he kept track of his cumulative sleep deprivation ticked back a few hours.  “Thanks for letting me sleep so long.  It must have gotten boring driving without anyone to talk to.”

“It was fine,” Enjolras said.  “You needed it.  I’m going in to use the bathroom and get something to drink.  Do you want anything?”

“I’ll come in too.”  Combeferre climbed out of the car and stretched, cracking his neck.  “How many more hours, do you know?”

“I think it’s about two, but check the GPS.  It’s somewhere on the floor.”

Combeferre bent down to rummage among the bags and discarded coats on the passenger side floor.  “Two hours fifteen minutes,” he reported as they went into the gas station.  “And Courfeyrac wants updates.”

“Already?”  Courfeyrac had been planning on attending the conference, but the alternative school he worked at ended up scheduling its big spring open house the Saturday of the conference weekend, and he had to be there.  He’d demanded frequent texts and photos from the trip so that he could experience it vicariously through Enjolras and Combeferre, but Enjolras had assumed he just meant updates about the conference itself.

“He says: ‘How’s the weather?  Did you hit any snow?’  And ‘You’d better stop at some sketchy middle-of-nowhere diner.  Someplace unique and fantastic.  Think of the experience.’  And then, ‘You just got Subway, didn’t you?’  And then six texts that just say ‘Are you there yet?’”

Enjolras laughed.  “He’s going to flip if we tell him we just got gas station snacks.  Unless you want to stop and get real food?”

“I’m fine with snacks, and we have those apples in the car as well.  I say let’s just keep moving.”

Ten minutes later, armed with Mountain Dew and prepackaged sandwiches, Enjolras and Combeferre set off again--but not before sending Courfeyrac a photo of the painfully generic food.  

The reply came back within thirty seconds: _god help me I am never letting you two travel alone again._  Combeferre’s laugher filled the car--and maybe it was just Enjolras’s imagination, but he thought it sounded a little more real than it had in weeks.


	3. valises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this chapter is perhaps less obviously intimate, as it's intimacy in life arrangements and trust with an important, semi-personal task, rather than physical closeness or contact: "Packing someone's bags for a trip." Ysabetwordsmith, the author of the forum post this series is based on, explains: "This requires a detailed knowledge of the other person so you know the right things to put in it. Plus it involves handling someone's personal items." So there you have it.

The first notes of the chorus of “We are young” buzzed out tinnily from Combeferre’s phone.  He stepped away from the sink full of dishes, hastily drying his soapy hands, and answered it.

“Courfeyrac, where are you?” he asked anxiously.  His roommate had been planning to take a half day and come home at noon--but it was almost three o’clock and he still wasn’t home.

“Um . . . Erie?”

“What?  That’s almost three hours away.  Why--”

“There was a kind of situation . . . you know my kid who’s at the juvenile detention center here?”  The way the system worked, any kid who entered care in Dauphin County got a Dauphin County caseworker--even if that kid got himself mixed up in drug shit and ended up in the juvenile detention center three hours to the north.  

“Oh no,” Combeferre sighed.  The "situation" must have been something pretty serious to prompt an unscheduled visit to a place that far away.  “Is everything okay?”

“Well, not really, but sort of.”  When was everything _really_ okay in these situations?  Combeferre didn’t know any of the details of the case--and he knew how much it killed Courfeyrac not to be able to _talk_ about any of it-- but he knew that things hadn’t been good for this kid; in a city with as many problems as theirs, they didn’t put a kid in care for nothing.  Combeferre could hear the stress in his friend’s voice as he went on.  “We got things sorted out, at least for the time being, and the kid is basically okay.  He’s safe and being taken care of, at least.  I’m coming home now.”

“Okay.”  Combeferre glanced at the clock.  “Courf, you’re not going to get back here until . . . probably after six.  And that’s if you don’t hit traffic or construction.  Our flight--”

“I know, it leaves at seven-thirty.  I’m with Shannon, we have a rental car.  She can drop me off right at the airport on our way into the city, if you can--”

“Bring your stuff to the airport for you?  Sure.”

“Yeah, that’d be great, just . . . well, I was going to take the half-day, you know?  So I figured I had all afternoon to pack, and . . . yeah.  Could you pack my things up for me?  Please?”

“No problem.  Anything in particular you wanted to bring?”  Combeferre grabbed the shopping list notepad and pen from the fridge and flipped to a fresh page.

“Um . . . just all the basic stuff.  I was going to wear my blue shirt to the wedding, and my brown sandals, I think they’re in the bottom of my closet somewhere, unless I packed them away.  If you can’t find them you can just throw in my leather flip-flops, ‘cause I _know_ I didn’t put those away.  Also can you pack all my Hawaiian shirts--hey, don’t laugh, Ferre!”

“ _All_ my Hawaiian shirts,” Combeferre echoed.

“And you will be _thanking_ me for amassing such a large collection of _majestic_ garments when it comes time for the bachelor party,” Courfeyrac said indignantly.  “Seriously though, I’ve got enough for you and Enjolras to borrow one, and Feuilly, too, if he wants; I don’t think he probably owns a Hawaiian shirt either.  I have dibs on the one with the dude with the ukulele, but you guys can fight over the one with the flamingos.”

“Okay, so I’m packing your blue shirt, your brown sandals, and all your Hawaiian shirts.  Anything else you specifically wanted?”

“Nah, I don’t care what else you pack.  You know what I need.”

“Okay, I’ll call if I have any questions.”

“Thanks, Ferre.  You’re a life saver.”

“Any time.  Text us when you’re getting closer, okay?”

“Will do.  See you soon.”

Enjolras came into the apartment as Combeferre was getting off the phone, his jeans dusty from the basement and his arms full of beach towels.  “Found them.  Was that Courf?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?  Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, but he’s going to be cutting it really close.  There was some situation with one of his kids and he had to go up to Erie.”

Enjolras’s eyes widened and he looked at the clock.  “He’s not going to--”

“I think he can make it back in time.  They’re on their way back now.”

Enjolras opened his mouth to say something, but his phone cut him off.

“Hey, Feuilly.  What’s up?”  He frowned.  “Are you okay?”  He listened a while longer; Combeferre could hear the crackly sound of Feuilly’s voice through the phone but couldn’t make out any of the words.

“Sure,” Enjolras was saying.  “Yeah, I’ll be right there.  I mean, it’ll take me about half an hour to get there, but I’ll head out now.  Do you need me to bring anything?  Okay . . . okay, yeah, of course.  See you soon.”  He ended the call and pulled his shoes from the closet, explaining to Combeferre as he put them on.  “That was Feuilly.  Someone backed into him in the parking lot just as he was leaving work, and his car is totalled.  He’s fine,” he hastened to add, “but he needs someone to pick him up.”

“Wow.  The fates _really_ don’t want us to get to this wedding.”

“It’s Bossuet’s bad luck, trying to keep his friends from his wedding,” Enjolras suggested.  “So anyway, I’m going to go get Feuilly and swing by his apartment so he can change and get his stuff, and then we’ll come back here.”

“Okay.” Combeferre glanced at the clock.  “It’s almost three-thirty.  You’re going to hit the Friday afternoon traffic, but if Feuilly can be quick, you should be back here with plenty of time for us to get to the airport.”

“Yeah, I hope so.  Just--”

Enjolras hesitated, the beginnings of a pleading look in his eyes, and Combeferre sighed.  “You haven’t packed either, have you?”

“Sorry!  I know, this is why I shouldn’t leave things to the last minute.  But could you . . .?”

“It’s not your fault Feuilly needs help,” Combeferre said.  “Go on.  I’ll pack your bag.”

Enjolras grinned sheepishly.  “Thanks, Ferre.”  He threw on his coat and grabbed his keys from the bowl next to the door.  “I have a pile of stuff started on my bed, that’s most of it.  I’ll text you when we’re on our way back.  Thanks again!”  And then he was out the door.

Combeferre surveyed the colorful chaos that was Courfeyrac’s room, then the jumble of clothes and books and random items that were obviously not meant to go to the wedding that covered Enjolras’s bed, and decided to move the packing operation to the living room.

He brought out his roommates’ wedding outfits first--they were the most important things, after all--and laid them over the back of the couch: the sea-blue button-down Courfeyrac had mentioned and Enjolras’s favorite red shirt, with a pair of khakis for each of them and Courfeyrac’s sport coat (he hadn’t said anything about it, and in Hawaii it might be too warm for it, but it wouldn’t hurt to pack it) and a bow tie.  The Hawaiian shirts for the bachelor party were the next most important; a couple of cheap plastic leis hung on the hanger with one of them, and Combeferre brought those out as well--why not?  Regular clothes were next, shorts and T-shirts from the bottom of Courfeyrac’s drawers and the storage bin under Enjolras’s closet, plus a sweatshirt and a pair of long pants for each of them just in case the evenings were cold.  Pajamas, socks, underwear, and swimming trunks finished out the clothes, and Combeferre moved on to the bathroom, gathering up toiletries for each of his friends.  Lastly, he collected their shoes, a hat for each of them in case they decided to go hiking, and took two pairs of sunglasses from Courfeyrac’s collection (since Enjolras kept his in the car and they might not remember to grab them in the flurry of getting on their way to the airport).

With everything laid out along the couch, he looked it over: Four neat piles of clothes for each of them, plus shoes and a quart-sized plastic bag full of toiletries.  What else did he need to pack for them?  As satisfying as the symmetry of it all was, he mused, there were probably some things that one of them would want that they other wouldn’t.

Combeferre looked around the apartment and selected a few books for Enjolras: an economics textbook he was borrowing from Cosette, a biography of Nelson Mandela, and _The Princess Bride--_ Enjolras had wanted to read it for ages so he would finally get all the references Joly and Bossuet made to things that weren’t in the movie; maybe this could be the week it finally happened.  And if he was going to spend time lying on the beach reading, he would definitely need sunscreen . . . but Combeferre wasn’t able to find any, either in Enjolras’s room or on his shelf in the bathroom.  He made a mental note to try and buy some on the way to the airport, rather than waiting until they got to the hotel

For Courfeyrac, he grabbed his harmonica and a handful of condoms from his dresser, the battered copy of _American Gods_ from his bedside table, and the camera bag hanging from his desk chair.  Poking around in the back of the closet turned up an inflatable dragon Combeferre had forgotten entirely about, and he squeezed the last of the air out of it and added it to Courfeyrac’s now sprawling pile.  While looking around for anything he might have missed, he noticed that Courfeyrac, among his various hair products, had a small tube of sunscreen.  Why Courfeyrac, whose complexion was dark enough he didn’t burn, owned sunscreen, Combeferre didn’t know, but he took it anyway and tossed it onto Enjolras’s pile.

Phone chargers.  The beach towels Enjolras had brought from downstairs.  Empty water bottles and Enjolras’s travel mug.  With everything assembled, Combeferre pulled out his friends’ suitcases from the hall closet and began packing everything, rolling the clothes and working the smaller items in between the bulky ones so everything fit logically.

He had just finished checking the weight of the suitcases on the bathroom scale to make sure they wouldn’t have to pay extra for them when Enjolras and Feuilly came tramping in noisily with Feuilly’s duffel bag and a bag of Chinese takeout.  With twenty minutes before they had to leave, the apartment was filled with a small whirlwind as they gobbled dinner, washed the last of the dishes and took out the trash, carried out all the suitcases, and checked _one last time_ that the lights and the oven were off and the windows all locked.  Then--finally--they were off.

As they were waiting for the shuttle from the airport parking lot, Combeferre’s phone chimed.  “There’s an accident or construction or something on 15,” he reported.  “Courfeyrac says everything’s at a standstill.”

Feuilly checked his watch.  “He’s still got an hour and a half.  He can make it.”

“Tell him to check in on his phone,” Enjolras suggested.  “We’ll check his bag as one of ours, and then all he has to do when he gets here is get through security and to the gate.”

Courfeyrac did make it--but just barely.  The other passengers were all seated on the plane and Enjolras was arguing with the airport employee (“No, he’s _here_ , he texted me; you can give him a few more minutes--he is in _this very building!_ ”) when Courfeyrac ran up to the gate, panting, his boarding pass clutched in his hand.

They were quickly ushered aboard the plane, the flight attendants closing the cabin doors practically on their heels.  The others--Feuilly, Bahorel, Jehan, and Grantaire; Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta had flown out a few days ahead of everyone else to get everything ready, and Marius and Cosette had a commitment that night and were flying out the next morning--cheered as Courfeyrac made his way down the aisle.  He found his seat, next to Combeferre, and slumped down in it, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“Ugh, this is gross,” he muttered.  “I ran all the way from security in a winter coat--I was afraid I didn’t have time to stop and take it off.”

“But you made it,” Combeferre said.  “And now you have a week of relaxing in Hawaii ahead of you.”  Courfeyrac grinned, but his face was still stressed.  “How are things with your kid?” Combeferre asked him.  “Was it a hard situation to handle?”

“Things are okay,” Courfeyrac said, considering.  “Not great--things are not going to be great for this kid for a long time.  But he doesn’t hate me, at least.  Sometimes I think he hates everyone in the world except his little brother.  But right now, he doesn’t hate me, so that’s good.  It means he still believes he has someone on his side.”

“That’s good.  I’m sure it was a stressful day, all the same.”

“Yeah--between the stuff with this kid, and then trying to get back in time and being worried I’d miss the flight, I’m a ball of adrenaline,” Courfeyrac grinned wryly.  “It’s weird to sit here and not be trying frantically to fix something.  And we have 5 hours of it.”  He leaned his head back against the seat and shut his eyes, squeezing the armrests restlessly.

Combeferre pulled something out of his coat pocket and handed it to Courfeyrac.  “Here.”

A grin broke across Courfeyrac’s face as he recognized his iPod.  “That’s exactly what I need.  You’re the best, Ferre.  Thanks.”

“Any time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wedding in question is, of course, Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta's.
> 
> This chapter is apparently set in an alternate universe in which everything is exactly the same as in the last chapter except that Courfeyrac is a caseworker instead of a teacher? For some reason I have a set idea of Enjolras and Combeferre's career paths but Courfeyrac's is all over the map depending on my mood.
> 
> Incidentally, the geography in this chapter is entirely made up, because I'm lazy. I just took place names from an area where I used to live and made them whatever distances apart was convenient. (In reality Erie is farther away that three hours--but my caseworker roommate still had to drive there to visit her foster kids.)


	4. commande

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ordering for someone at a restaurant"
> 
> Like the last drabble, this one is about the intimacy of knowing someone extremely well, having so long shared the little details of everyday life with them that you don't need to ask.
> 
> This piece is set a little earlier than the others, when they are still college students.

“And it’s just so ridiculous, you know, because they’re not even _using_ that room, I think there’s maybe one class that meets there, but they can’t let an LGBT group have it for two hours on Thursday nights?”

“Yeah, that’s bullshit,” Courfeyrac agreed.

“And the worst thing,” Enjolras continued, fiddling with his straw wrapper, “is they’re pretending it’s just bureaucracy and it’s a shame but surely the appeals process will sort it out and so we can’t complain about it because they’ll say ‘well, we _told_ them to appeal, I don’t know why they didn’t follow the correct processes like _adults_ ,’ but you know where that appeal is going to go--straight to the shredder.”

“What are you going to do?” Courfeyrac asked.

“We’re going to appeal, of course,” Enjolras said, shrugging.  “Not that it’s going to do any good.  But you've got to at least try to go through the appropriate channels, if nothing else than to give yourself evidence for when you challenge them.”

“You’re not even a member of the group, are you?” Courfeyrac asked.  “I mean, not in a ‘what even are you, Enjolras?’ way, just--you can't even go to their meetings, Thursdays are ABC night.  Unless you're planning on defecting?”

Enjolras laughed.  “No, no, I’m not quitting the group--can you imagine?  But this LGBT group, it’s almost all freshmen, and the kid who organized it has no idea what ze’s doing, at least not when it comes to dealing with the administration.  And ze’s really disorganized--I think ze mentioned something about ADHD in passing the last time we talked, so there may be those kinds of challenges going on too.  So I’m going to give them a hand with the appeal process, help coach them on how to talk to the administration. I mean, we've had to fight them on so many things now that I know the process pretty well. And they're good kids, they deserve someone to help them out."

"I wish I was still at the newspaper," Courfeyrac lamented. "Not that I could've convinced them to take on the article even if I was still there. But if they _would_ , an article on this whole thing might be enough to get them to stop dragging their feet and do what's right for once. I don't know, maybe I could've stuck it out--I'm a senior now, I could be News Editor at least and have some decision-making power."

"You would've been miserable for three years for it," Enjolras said. "And the school newspaper doesn't really go in for this kind of thing--I mean, you know that better than anyone."

"But if I'd been there the whole time, maybe I could've changed how they are . . ."

"And you'd have wasted hours of your time writing vapid articles about the senior class gift and the sidewalk repouring project and what faculty members did for their summer vacations--hours of time that instead went to planning protests and designing flyers and talking to people about issues that matter."

"Yeah, I guess." Courfeyrac fiddled with the menu. "It's just so frustrating, you know--when the paper _could_ be such a good thing."

"It could," Enjolras agreed. "But we don't need it; we have lots of other resources for getting the word out now--things we have in part thanks to your work on them. And--" He was cut off by his phone buzzing on the table. "Hang on, sorry. It's my father." He grimaced. "I'm . . . I'm going to step outside to take this."

"Good plan," Courfeyrac nodded. Conversations between Enjolras and his father were an unpredictable affair. The problem was the two of them were _so much_ alike. Both were stubborn and got emotionally invested in anything they cared about; they each could talk for hours about why they were right and had no patience for listening to the other side's fatally flawed arguments. And, of course, they had ended up on polar opposite ends of the political, economic, and social spectrums. If they confined their conversations to pleasantries, they could be very pleasant to each other. But touch on anything that really mattered, and the conversation could devolve into a shouting match in a matter of minutes.

Courfeyrac entertained himself by watching the people in the restaurant while he waited for Enjolras. It was the bizarre and beautiful mix of people you often found in a diner at this time of night: A group of (probably stoned, from all the giggling) high schoolers occupied the corner booth, and next to them two old men sat in companionable silence over cups of black coffee and half a slice each of apple pie. At the counter, a construction worker with a bald eagle tattoo peeking out above the neck of his flourescent yellow vest held a conversation in muttered two- and three-word-phrases with a dark-skinned man in a black turban as they fortified themselves for their night shifts with cheap caffeine.

"Okay, hon, are you ready to--oh, should I come back in a little bit?"

"No, it's fine, I'll order for him," Courfeyrac said, remembering the time they'd been forgotten in this place and sat and talked for an hour before someone thought to check back to see if they were ready to order. He hadn't minded that much--it happened sometimes, people were only human--but tonight he was _hungry_ and didn't want to risk it. "I'll have the Tuscan omelette, but can you do it with ham instead of the mushrooms? And rye bread for the toast. And he'll have the pancakes."

"Two or three?"

"Four?"

The waitress grinned. "Sure. And for the meat?"

"Um . . . sausage."

"Okay. And did you want anything to drink with that, besides the waters?"

"I'll have an orange juice, please. And . . ." Courfeyrac considered the potentially stressful conversation Enjolras might be having--the fact that he was still on the phone was probably not a good sign--and decided some extra sugar was in order. "And a milkshake for him. Chocolate, please. Could you wait until he comes back to make that, though? I'm not sure how long he will be and if you bring it out now it might be all melted by the time he gets his ass back in here."

"Of course, hon,"

Courfeyrac beamed at her. "Great, thanks so much."

Enjolras returned at the same time that their food arrived, his mouth set in a thin line. "He wants me to intern with the company this summer," he growled, soaking his plate in syrup and then cutting into the pancakes as if they were the status quo and Wall Street and the capitalist economic system all embodied in a few disks of fried dough. "At a company that does contracting for the DoD! And he--and this is the thing that makes me mad--he acted hurt when I didn't consider the suggestion!"

Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow. "Has he ever _heard_ you talk about our military?"

"Exactly!" Enjolras said around a huge mouthfull of pancake. "It's like he doesn't even know me. Which of course isn't true, we're argued about this shit a hundred times. Which means that he's never taken anything I've said seriously, like he thinks it's just some rebellious teenager phase that I'll grow out of, and--and--argh!" He angrily sliced off another mouthful of pancake. "Are you going to take those? I don't like them touching my food."

Courfeyrac speared the sausages off the side of Enjolras's plate. "That's got to be frustrating--your dad, I mean. Well, also the sausages."

The corner of Enjolras's mouth twitched up. "Tremendously. I feel like I'm going to scream. Also, my father is somewhat annoying as well."

"Eventually, he's going to realize that you're an adult and you've thought this stuff through and you're not going to change the way you think," Courfeyrac said. "It might not happen until you're 30, but he's going to have to accept someday that you are not a younger version of himself."

"I know," Enjolras sighed. "It's just--well, I thought he already _did_ , at least a little bit. I know, it was naive of me--thinking that my father would actually have some respect for his son. But he was less argumentative at Thanksgiving, and I thought that meant he was starting to realize that he wasn't going to change my mind with more pontificating over the realities of large-scale economies. I guess he was just getting bored with arguing with his rebellious kid."

The waitress stopped by their table, setting Enjolras's milkshake down in front of him. "How is everything? Anything I can bring you?"

"Everything's great, thanks," Courfeyrac told her, and she gathered up his empty toast plate and went back behind the counter.

Enjolras was frowning at his milkshake. "I don't remember ordering this."

Courfeyrac laughed. "But you remember ordering the pancakes?"

"Well, yeah, of--" Enjolras stopped. "Wait. No. Yes? I'm con--"

"I ordered for you, silly. You were out on the phone, and I was hungry. I hope that's okay."

"Yeah, that's fine. I mean, I'm not sure I really needed a milkshake too, after four pancakes, but--" He took a sip anyway, and his eyes lit up. " _Yes_. Yes, I did. That is exactly what I needed."

Courfeyrac grinned.  “Of course it is.”


	5. pleurer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a pretty straightforward prompt: "crying on someone"
> 
> I apologize because this chapter is not particularly good; it is really rambly and partly that's intentional and partly it's a result of me not wanting to make this a huge deal that i edit and re-edit a million times (because this trope is pretty much my favorite thing in les mis fic and so it was a struggle not to put so much pressure on myself to make it perfect that i froze up and couldn't write anything). So it is what it is.
> 
> Incidentally, this chapter is set 5 or 6 years after the last one.

“Enjolras, do we still have that lamp Bahorel was trying to get rid of?” Courfeyrac called as he opened the door of the apartment.

“I think it’s in the bathroom closet.”  Enjolras’s answer came, slightly muffled, from behind the door of his room.

“What’s it doing in there?”

“I don’t know.  Because it’s the biggest closet in the apartment?”

Courfeyrac hesitated just a second, his head cocked to one side.  Then, as if shaking off a daydream, he beckoned Jehan inside.  “Hang on, Jehan, I’ll see if I can find it.”  He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a minute later, triumphantly brandishing an ornate old lamp with no shade, all faux gold and implausible scrollwork.

“Oh god, it’s so ugly!” Jehan crowed.

“I _told_ you so.  Are you sure you still--”

“ _Yes!_ ”  Jehan practically snatched it out of Courfeyrac’s hands.  “It’s perfect.”

Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow, but shrugged.  “Well, if you’re happy, we’re happy to get it out of our bathroom closet.  Anyway, ordinarily I’d invite you to stay and hang out for a bit, or study, or whatever, but I have some things I have to take care of, so . . .”

“Understood,” Jehan smiled.  “And perfectly okay.  I need to go home and do laundry anyway; I am literally wearing my last pair of clean underwear.  I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

Courfeyrac helped Jehan bundle up the ludicrously long lamp cord and saw him to the door.  After his friend was gone, Courfeyrac went to Enjolras’s room and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Enjolras was sitting at his desk, a textbook open in front of him.  Courfeyrac moved to the bed and sat down at the end of it, dangling his feet over the footboard.  “Are you okay?” he asked.

Enjolras blinked at him.  “What?”

“You sounded . . . different.  Like something was wrong.  I thought I’d check.  So.  Are you okay?”

“Um.”  Courfeyrac could see the lines of Enjolras’s face shift as he let his guard down, and the tension and sadness showed through. “ I . . . I don’t know.”

“What happened?”

“My father . . . died.  Early this morning.”

“Oh my god, Enjolras, I’m sorry.”  Courfeyrac pushed himself up off the bed and held out his arms; Enjolras dazedly folded himself into his friend’s embrace.

“It was a heart attack,” Enjolras said to Courfeyrac’s shoulder.  “Completely without warning; he woke up in the middle of the night feeling a little bit strange, and half an hour later he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”

Courfeyrac pulled him over to the bed and sat down with him, his arm still draped around his shoulders.  “I’m so sorry, Enj,” he said again.

“It was at four in the morning,” Enjolras added.  “My mother called me this morning, when I was on my way to Civil Rights Law.”

“And you’ve been here alone all day?” Courfeyrac asked.  “Why didn’t you call one of us?”

“Not all day.  I . . . I went to class still.  Was that stupid?  I guess it was.  I don’t remember what the lecture was so I guess there wasn’t much point to it.  It was just, I was right there already, just a few feet down the hall, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

Courfeyrac rubbed Enjolras’s shoulder.  “Don’t worry about it; it’s not important.”

“I wasn’t crying or anything, so I guess it was fine.  But isn’t that awful, Courf?  I didn’t cry at all.  My father was dead--is dead--you’re supposed to cry when your parents die.”

“Hey,” Courfeyrac squeezed Enjolras’s hand with his free hand.  “It’s not awful.  Everybody grieves in different ways, and whatever you feel is okay.  It’s not like feelings are something you can choose.  And besides, you and your father had a complicated relationship.”

Enjolras gave a ragged half laugh.  “I’ll say.  I don’t know whether I should be disgusted with myself for not crying over his death or if I should be mad at _him_ for being such an asshole that I don’t feel sad about him dying.”

“Either one is okay.  Or both,” Courfeyrac reminded him.

“And it’s weird,” Enjolras continued, “because obviously I already had complicated feelings about him--I mean, he was my _father_ , and it wasn’t like _everything_ was bad between us, and I owed him a lot, I guess, but he was also so controlling and then dismissive and judgemental when I didn’t let him control me and made my own decisions, and we would fight so much and he said some horrible things--and it’s not like those feelings have gone away, but now there’s this new thing of him being dead and how am I supposed to feel about that, on top of everything that was already there.”  He paused, out of breath, and ran a hand through his hair.

“And I feel so confused and _upset_ that I’m confused--and then I feel guilty about all of it, because _my father just died_ and what am I thinking about?  How awkward and uncomfortable this is for _me_.”  He laughed bitterly.  “How self-absorbed can you get?”

“You’re not self-absorbed, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac told him.  “It’s okay to think about yourself and what you’re feeling--that’s a _good_ thing.”  He squeezed Enjolras’s shoulders again.  “Do you want to talk about it more?  Or we can do something else if you want.”

Enjolras shrugged.  “I don’t know.  It’s not like there’s really anything to say.  We just didn’t get along--ever.  It’s not like we had some big fight right before he died and I have to agonize over the last thing I ever said to him being ‘I hate you’ or something.  I don’t even remember what the last things we said to each other were.  The last time I talked to him was three weeks ago, and we didn’t fight that time, we just talked about my cousin’s graduation, mostly.

“And it’s sad because that was the best things ever got between us.  That casual, vapid small talk is the closest thing I have to good memories of him.  Because every time we tried to talk about something that really mattered, he acted like he had the only truth, and I fought him on everything, and he never listened, and he insulted me, and I guess I insulted him back, too, although I’m not sure it really mattered to him because I don’t think he ever really heard a word I said.”  Enjolras paused, gritting his teeth.  Courfeyrac rubbed the back of Enjolras’s hand with his thumb, his eyes fixed on his friend’s face.

“This _isn’t_ how fathers and children are supposed to be!” Enjolras burst out, his voice cracking.  His hand clenched on Courfeyrac’s.  “Fathers are supposed to be supportive of their kids; they’re not supposed to control and use and belittle them at every opportunity.  And children are supposed to mourn their parents when they die.  How did we fuck this up so badly?  

“I keep going back and forth--should _I_ have done something differently or should he?  I feel guilty because I _could_ have made more of an effort, apologized for blowing up at him so many times, or tried harder to listen.  But then I get mad and I think no, _he_ should have made an effort, because did he _ever_ , once in his life, take me seriously or treat me with any kind of respect?  And why should I regret not having given him much a chance, when he never did for me?  But I _do_ , or maybe I just regret that he didn’t, I don’t even know!” Tears stood in Enjolras’s eyes, but he pushed on, his voice loud and ragged.

“But that’s the thing, he didn’t--and I didn’t--and it’s a closed book now.  Whatever should have happened between us, it didn’t and now it’s too late to for things to be the way they should be, and--and that’s our story, and--and _it’s n-never going to be any d-d-different_.”  The last words were choked out around a sob, and Enjolras put his head down on his knees and cried.

Courfeyrac, his own vision swimming with tears, rubbed Enjolras’s back as it shook with sobs.  “I’m sorry, Enjolras.  I’m so sorry.”

Enjolras raised his head and looked at his friend, his face wet with tears.  He tried to say something but he was crying too hard, so Courfeyrac just pulled him into a hug.  Enjolras wrapped his arms around Courfeyrac and wept into his shoulder.  His hands gripping his shirt, he clung to him like he was the only solid thing in the middle of a hurricane.

After a few minutes, Enjolras caught his breath and managed to stifle a few last sobs.  Courfeyrac kept his arms around him and Enjolras rested his forehead on his shoulder in silence for a few more minutes before pulling back to look up at him with red-rimmed eyes.  Courfeyrac reached up to brush a lock of hair out of his face, and Enjolras smiled wetly.

“Pass me a tissue?” he said, his voice still unsteady.

Courfeyrac wiped tears from his own cheeks as Enjolras blew his nose and took a few more deep breaths.  “Okay?” he asked him quietly.

“Yeah.  Sorry, I didn’t expect to fall apart like that.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Enj.  It’s okay to be sad.  Or confused--in any situation, but especially with something like this.”

“Thanks for listening, though.  It . . . it helped.”

“Any time.  You know that.”

Enjolras nodded.  “I do.”

“What do you want to do tonight?” Courfeyrac asked.  “It’s almost dinnertime, although I don’t think we have much of anything in the apartment since tomorrow’s grocery day.  Maybe Combeferre could pick up something on his way home?  He gets off in twenty minutes.  Or we could order pizza.”

Enjolras shrugged.  “I’m not very hungry.  I know, I know,” he added before Courfeyrac could protest that he needed to eat.  “I just mean I’ll eat whatever, I don’t care.  And can we put on a movie or something?  I’ve been _thinking_ about shit all day long and I just need to turn my brain off for a bit.”

“Sure, we still have that miniseries Ferre wanted to watch.  Ooh, or we could finally watch _The Lorax_!”  Enjolras made a face.  “No, really, you’ll like it, I swear,” Courfeyrac insisted.  “And this is the perfect opportunity, because when you cry at the end--and you _will_ cry; we all did, even Grantaire, he claims he didn’t but that is a lie--nobody can ever tease you about it.”

“You’re a terrible, irreverent person,” Enjolras said, rubbing his eyes.  He tossed his wad of tissues at the trash can, missed by a mile, and got up to throw them away properly.

“You’re going to get through this, Enj,” Courfeyrac said quietly.  “I know it sucks, and it’s probably going to be really hard.  But we’re here for you.  Whatever you need.”

“I know.”  Enjolras’s lip trembled, but he smiled.  “And I love you.”


	6. nettoyer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "cleaning someone else's living space"
> 
> Featuring actual med student Combeferre being super stressed out, which seems to be the only way I write him--plus the top two reasons why I never really seriously considered med school (even though I've admired doctors from afar for a long time).

“Have you seen my pants?” Combeferre asked frantically as he rushed through the kitchen en route to the living room.

Courfeyrac, hunched at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee as if protecting it from a cruel world with nothing but his body, blinked blurrily at him.  “Say what?”  He got up from the table and shuffled, still clutching the coffee mug, into the living room.  A second glance proved that Combeferre was in fact currently wearing some pants, but they were plaid pajama bottoms.

“My pants--my scrub bottoms,” Combeferre repeated as he dug through the pile of coats and sweatshirts taking up one cushion of the couch. “The green ones.”

The image penetrated through Courfeyrac’s haze of sleep and he straightened.  “You’re going to wear green pants with that purple top?  Listen, I know the Hulk rocks those colors, but on you, I don’t know if--”

Combeferre cut him off with an unamused glare.  “The purple pants have someone else’s urine on them, the green top has someone else’s _vomit_ on it, both sets of _blue_ scrubs have various people’s blood on them, the brown ones have disappeared somewhere in the chaos that is my bedroom floor, and the _tan_ ones have tomato soup all over them because I fell asleep last night while I was eating dinner.  So unless you have fashion advice for the correct fall colors to pair with tomato soup, maybe a different kind of advice would be helpful.”

Courfeyrac’s face reddened.  “I haven’t seen them,” he said meekly.  “When did you wear them last?”

“I have no idea.”  Combeferre glanced at his phone.  “Shit, I’m late, I’m going to miss the bus.”

“Okay, you said someone vomited on the green top.  You were wearing the bottoms at the same time, right?  What day did you get puked on?”

“Vomiting . . .” Combeferre shut his eyes.  “That would be last Thursday.”

“Okay, Thursday you came straight to the Musain from your shift and changed in the bathroom there--did you leave the bottoms in your bag?”

Combeferre’s eyes widened and he dashed back into his room.  A minute later he came rushing back out, now wearing the green bottoms.  “Thank you,” he called over his shoulder as he snatched a coat off the couch and ran out the door.

Courfeyrac was down to the last few swallows of coffee when Enjolras stumbled into the kitchen in a raggedy old shirt and a pair of boxers, his blonde hair a fluffy mess sticking out on all sides, his eyes closed except for the tiniest slit that allowed him to shuffle over to the coffee maker and pour the most of the remainder of the pot into his mug.  Without a word, he turned and disappeared back into his room.  Courfeyrac downed the rest of his coffee, dropped the mug in the dishwasher, and went to his own room to get ready.

Twenty minutes later, he was packing his lunch when Enjolras reemerged from his room alert and fully dressed in a black suit and tie, his hair perfectly tamed, balancing his coffee mug, and empty plate, and an apple core on top of a pile of folders.

“Morning,” he greeted Courfeyrac as he stacked the dishes in the sink and sliding the folders into his messenger bag on the table.  He went out into the living room and a minute later called back, “Did Combeferre take my coat again?”

“He might have, he was in a big hurry.”

Enjolras sighed, holding up Combeferre’s navy blue peacoat.  “He must have, if he left in a coat, because this is definitely not mine.  Can I borrow one of yours again?  His looks ridiculous on me.”

“Sure, take whichever one you like.”  Courfeyrac shoved his sandwich and apple in his bag and followed Enjolras out the door--but not without a thoughtful glance at the three-foot section of the uncomfortable couch (the one that only got used when they had a lot of company over) that had become Combeferre's staging area when the mess in his room got too much to handle.  Two months ago, it had been a modest pile of books.  Now half a library plus an remainder of an unfolded load of laundry sprawled over most of the couch.

 

Courfeyrac was always the first one home, these days: Combeferre's shifts at the hospital lasted 12 hours at best, and Enjolras, as the most junior member of the law firm he'd started at back in October, often had to work well into the evening. Courfeyrac's teaching job wasn't all sunshine and roses, but at least the kids were gone by three thirty and he was always home (usually with prep work to complete for the next day, but still home) by four. Sometimes it got a little lonely, being there all by himself until dinnertime or even later--but there were times when the uninterrupted time came in handy.

After shedding his bag at the kitchen table and exchanging his professional clothes for a T-shirt and sweatpants, Courfeyrac opened the door to Combeferre's room and surveyed the situation. It wasn't good. Textbooks, binders, and medical journals stood in stacks on every available flat surface; many of the piles had toppled over, spilling papers crammed with Combeferre's tiny, neat handwriting all over the floor. Clothes in various states of cleanliness were everywhere, and dirty dishes were perched on top of the books and sometimes strewn among the clothes. Underneath another massive jumble of clothes and papers, the bedsheets were wrinkled, the bottom sheet untucked at one corner; on the desk a half-eaten donut seeped grease into a textbook open to a diagram of the endocrine system.

Originally, Courfeyrac had just planned to wash Combeferre's scrubs for him. But the idea had grown while he was at work, and the state of the room confirmed that more was needed. If the mess was enough to stress out Courfeyrac, who knew he had a tendency to be overly tolerant (Combeferre would say lax) about this kind of thing, he had no idea how Combeferre was functioning in it. Courfeyrac distinctly remembered Combeferre spending every Friday afternoon in college putting his room in perfect order, claiming he couldn't focus on anything or relax when things were out of place. Either his personality had changed _dramatically_ or med school was pushing him right up to the edge.

After doing a brief triage, Courfeyrac flung himself into the mess. He started by collecting all the clothes, dirty dishes, and leftover food; with one load of laundry in the washing machine and the rest in a big pile on the living room floor, he tackled the rest of the mess. This was more difficult to sort out, as he didn't exactly know which books Combeferre was currently using or which notes went together. He did his best to extrapolate which binders the various papers had come from based on where they'd landed on the floor, replaced the textbooks in the (already alphabetized) bookshelves, and settled for piling everything else in neat piles on the desk. With the bulk of the mess taken care of, more unusual items emerged: an older book entirely in German that appeared, from the rather graphic pictures, to be a compendium of skin conditions, a plastic container full of a cloudy brownish liquid Courfeyrac didn't want to wonder about, and no fewer than three old stethoscopes. The saddest thing was unearthing the corners into which the equipment for Combeferre's hobbies had been pushed over the months--a water-testing kit, a battered tree-identification book, a pair of cross-country ski boots, and a pair of binoculars. The binoculars had ended up underneath a pile of textbooks, and the casing had cracked, one of the lenses falling out of the eyepiece entirely.  Courfeyrac had forgotten Combeferre even _had_ some of these things.

Enjolras came home around six-thirty, in time to help Courfeyrac remake Combeferre's bed with clean sheets. Enjolras ran the vacuum while Courfeyrac folded the last load of laundry, and they put the clothes away together. When they finished, the floor was clear of things, the notes and photocopies articles were piled neatly on the desk, and a stack of clean scrubs sat on the pillow of the neatly made bed.  They retired to the kitchen to eat dinner, satisfied smiles playing on their lips, as they waited for Combeferre to come home.

 

Courfeyrac was in the kitchen testing out proportions of baking soda and vinegar in preparation for Friday's lesson on volcanoes (really, the first proportion he had tested had produced plenty of exciting foam, more than enough for the purposes of the lesson, but Courfeyrac was not one to settle for less than perfection--at least, not when it came to homemade explosions). Combeferre trudged in, his bare wrists sticking out of the sleeves of Enjolras's peacoat, and dropped his travel mug into the sink.

"Hey, I'm sorry I was short with you this morning," he said, shrugging out of Enjolras's coat and draping it on the back of a chair. "I'm exhausted, but that's no excuse."

"Don't worry about it," Courfeyrac said. "I know how crazy things have been for you. Hey, are you hungry? Enjolras brought home pad thai; there's a whole container of it in the fridge."

Combeferre rubbed his eyes, and Courfeyrac noticed how dark the shadows under them had gotten. "Yeah, in a bit. I want to get a shower first. I got vomited on again today."

"Is there any branch of medicine where you do not get sprayed with other people's fluids on a daily basis?" Courfeyrac asked. “Because maybe you should think about going into that branch.”

Combeferre, already on his way out of the kitchen, shrugged. "There's dermatology. But that's not really the kind of medicine I wanted to get into."

Courfeyrac heard his heavy steps go down the hallway and stop at the door of his room. Just then the current test batch responded more enthusiastically than he'd been expecting and he jumped back with a yelp, then ran to the hall closet for more towels. He found Combeferre still standing at his doorway, leaning his forehead against the unopened door. He jumped when Courfeyrac passed him.

"Sorry--just zoned out for a minute."  Courfeyrac pretended not to notice the redness of his eyes.

As Courfeyrac mopped up about a gallon of baking soda-vinegar foam from the table and floor, he heard Combeferre's door open--and then silence for thirty seconds.

"Oh my god," came Combeferre's voice from the hallway. Then, louder, "Oh my _god_."

A moment later, he was at the kitchen doorway, his face alight. "Courfeyrac, you beautiful, _glorious_ soul--that was you, wasn't it?"

Courfeyrac grinned. "Enjolras helped, too. I hope we didn't mess up anything. I tried to keep your papers in order."

"Oh my god," Combeferre said again, a wide smile splitting his face. Already he looked less tense. "You have no idea how much this means to me. It was killing me to . . . I mean, I . . . I have _clean scrubs_ to put on tomorrow." Tears swam in his eyes.

Courfeyrac pulled him into a quick hug, which Combeferre returned fiercely, then pushed him in the direction of the hallway. "Go take your shower, silly. You're so tired, you're getting maudlin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey look, teacher!Courfeyrac is back.
> 
> I have conflicting feelings about Enjolras as a lawyer. In a way it feels weird to write about him in a suit and tie, going to a job that is enmeshed in The System. But on the other hand, I kind of like the idea that maybe as he grew older and gained experience, Enjolras would have mellowed out and seen the value of working for change within the system (that is, if he hadn't died young). Anyway, I'm sure it's a law firm that does civil rights or something like that.
> 
> I'm on tumblr if you want to come by and say hi: takethewatch.tumblr.com


	7. deshabiller

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "undressing someone"
> 
> it was an interesting challenge to find a way to make this situation platonic. i think it worked although i'm not terribly thrilled with how this chapter came out. but i'm tired of fiddling with it and it's been a long week so i'm just posting it and going on to something else.

_Courfeyrac, 7:18: hey when is ur shift done?_

 

The text had come in nearly half an hour ago, but Combeferre had been sitting in on a consultation.  Afterward he had to do rounds, but it was a slow day and after the first few rooms he stepped into the bathroom for a few moments to see if it was anything important.  With Courfeyrac, it was impossible to tell, so he typed a quick answer: _In about twenty minutes. Why?_

He hadn’t gotten ten paces away from the bathroom when his phone buzzed again in his pocket, so after he checked in on the next patient, he pulled it out again.

 

_Courfeyrac, 7:41: i have a favor to ask when u get off . . . can u give me a ride home?  i ended up somewher without my car long story_

 

 _Sure. Just let me know where to pick you up._ Combeferre texted back.  He finished up his rounds; then, just ten minutes before he was done (of course), there was a small crisis with a patient who responded poorly to waking up in a hospital bed after surgery and with no memory of what had put her in the hospital.  With all the running around over that, Combeferre didn’t even realize that Courfeyrac had never texted him back with the location until his phone went off three times in quick succession as he was walking back to the break room to collect his jacket.

 

_Courfeyrac, 8:01: im here actually_

_Courfeyrac, 8:02: that is, in the er_

_Courfeyrac, 8:02: convenient right?_

_wait ER as in you were in the ER today?  are you okay?_  Combeferre snatched up his coat and strode quickly to the elevator.  As he watched the floors count down he realized he was being silly to worry--Courfeyrac probably had just brought one of his afterschool program kids in.  And even if he had come in for himself, the fact that he needed a ride meant that he had been released.  Which meant that he was fine.

Still, the cold feeling in his chest didn’t let go entirely until he saw Courfeyrac leaning on the ER desk, chatting with one of the admitting nurses.  He looked fine--until he turned and Combeferre saw that his arm in the other side was in a sling, his jacket zipped up over it with the left sleeve hanging loose.  Still, he grinned when he saw Combeferre.

“Don’t ask,” he said immediately, but Combeferre asked anyway.

“What happened?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I dashed out into the street to save a little child from an onrushing carriage?” Courfeyrac asked hopefully.  Combeferre snorted.

“I should just tell people that anyway,” continued Courfeyrac.  “I bet Marius would believe me.  Remember when I had him convinced there was a real TV show called ‘Louse’ and it was about a giant foul-mouthed animated woodlouse with regular live-action human friends?  Actually, I think there’s at least a part of him that still believes that one.  ‘Louse’ _should_ be real; it would be such a good show.”

“Your shoulder,” Combeferre insisted.  “I’ll back you up on the carriage story if you tell me what actually happened?”

“I fell off a roof,” Courfeyrac said.  “Which makes it sound more intense than it really was--it was a shed roof.  I, um, climbed up to get a soccer ball; we were playing soccer in afterschool and it got stuck up there.  And the gutter was not as sturdy as I thought it should be.”

“What happened?” Combeferre asked, then realized the question sounded extremely repetitive.  “I mean, what is the--”

“Fractured collarbone and torn rotator cuff,” Courfeyrac supplied.  “I’ll probably need surgery for the rotator cuff but they’re going to see what a few days of immobilization does for it first.  I got them to write everything down and give me copies of the X-rays; I thought you might want to see them.  I mean, not that you can’t see X-rays any day you want to, but . . .”

“No, that’s great, thanks.” Combeferre took the folder from Courfeyrac.  “Shall we go home now?”

“Yeah,” Courfeyrac nodded.  He turned to the nurse.  “Have a good rest of your shift, Danae.”

“Thanks, hon.  You take care of that shoulder!”

 

“Did you eat dinner yet?” Combeferre asked as he locked the apartment door behind them.

“No, and I’m starved.  I think Enjolras and I ate the last of the leftovers for lunch today.  There’s a container of some curry-type thing in the corner but I’m not sure how long that’s been there, and it’s not enough for two anyway.”

“That’s Enjolras’s from last Friday.  I need to remind him to eat it up before it goes by.  Where is he, anyway?”

“Town hall meeting with the mayoral candidates in East Monroe.”

“Wait, but we don’t live in East Monroe.  Why--”

“Natural gas drilling policy is one of the hot issues,” Courfeyrac explained.  “So it gives Enjolras a chance to ask provocative questions about the ownership and use of natural resources in a public forum.  I was going to go with him, play the innocent but charming kid who accidentally asks some really piercing questions--‘out of the mouths of babes and infants,’ you know--but obviously that got sidetracked.”

“Okay.  Anyway, dinner?  I could make eggs, that’s fast.”

“Eggs sounds great.  I’ll be back to help in just a minute, I just want to change clothes.”

Combeferre started a pan warming, then cracked the eggs into a bowl.  He looked in the refrigerator for something to scramble into them--spinach or cheese or tomatoes--but there really wasn’t much.  It was too bad; he was in the mood for a mindless, systematic task like chopping vegetables.  He didn’t cook often, being so busy at the hospital, but he enjoyed it when he had the time.  Something about the straightforwardness of it all--measure the ingredients, chop the ingredients, follow the directions in the recipe--appealed to him.  It was quiet and easy and when you messed something up, the only consequence was a bad dinner.

Combeferre was just pouring the milk into the eggs when he heard a plaintive wail from Courfeyrac’s room: “Ferre, help!”  

He went down the hallway and pushed open the door to see Courfeyrac half in and half out of his T-shirt, his good arm doubled up in the sleeve and the back of the shirt pulled up half over his shoulders.  “I’m stuck,” he admitted with a little laugh, but Combeferre could see the glint of tears in his eyes and made a mental note to have him take more pain meds after he finished changing his clothes.

“Okay, here, lift your right arm up,” he said quickly.  “You’re pulling against your shoulder stretching it that way.”  He gently pulled on the sleeve holding Courfeyrac’s left arm steady with his other hand, and Courfeyrac maneuvered his arm out of the awkward position.  “Okay, now bring your arm up and out of the sleeve . . .”  

Between the two of them, they managed to get Courfeyrac’s right arm out of the shirt without stressing his injured shoulder too much.  Then Combeferre pulled the shirt up and over Courfeyrac’s head, holding it down on the other side so that it wouldn’t strain the injured shoulder.  Finally, he eased it carefully off Courfeyrac’s left arm.

“Only button-down shirts for now on,” Courfeyrac said fervently.  “I got that one off fine, it was just the undershirt that was the problem.”

“Yes, I’m surprised they didn’t take this off you at the ER,” Combeferre said, tossing the T-shirt in the laundry basket.  “But do you have any comfortable button-downs?”

Courfeyrac’s face fell.  “No.  Just work shirts.”  He looked his closet up and down regretfully.  “I guess I can wear a zip-up hoodie or something.”

“Hang on.”  Combeferre went across the hall to his room and rummaged in a drawer.  He returned to Courfeyrac’s room holding up a faded flannel pajama shirt.  “How’s this?”

“Perfect!”

Combeferre tossed the shirt to Courfeyrac, who caught it awkwardly with his right hand.  “If you can get those buttons undone by yourself, I go find our ibuprofen and get the child cap off for you--okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yet another new job for courfeyrac! this time he works in an after-school program for at-risk kids. this is because when i tried to think of ways an adult might get injured the first thing that came to mind was my friend who works for a similar program and who has hurt himself like six times playing soccer with his kids.
> 
> the Louse story is from real life too.


	8. nuque

Enjolras knew before he opened the door that Courfeyrac had had a bad day--because he could hear the sounds of a basketball game on the TV. Usually, Enjolras was met by the sound of loud, rapid Spanish when he opened the apartment door, and came in to find Courfeyrac cooking dinner with the TV blaring Columbian soap operas in the background. After a day of dealing with difficult problems with huge consequences for the families in his caseload, Courfeyrac liked the drama of the telenovelas: It was fake and ridiculous and none of it actually mattered. But there were some days when even fake television drama was too much for his ragged nerves, and then he turned to the even more artificial noise of sports commentary.

“Hey,” Enjolras said, stopping at the living room doorway on his way to the kitchen. “How was your day?”

Courfeyrac was sprawled on the couch, still wearing his dress pants and button-down, one arm draped over his eyes. He opened his mouth, then stopped as if weighing answers. “Too long,” he finally settled on.

“Did you have court today?” Enjolras asked, ducking quickly into the kitchen to drop his things on the table. _Just put them straight into the sink,_ Combeferre’s voice pleaded in his head, but he ignored it this once in favor of getting back into the living room to hear his roommate’s answer.

“No court,” Courfeyrac laughed wearily. “Just everyday stuff. Foster parents who apparently never read the definition of foster care telling me they’ve decided to adopt their foster kid. Bio parents cursing me out because they think I’m against them because of their race--actually, I got that from two different parents today, one white, one black, so that was fun. And one of my kids got caught with weed in his backpack again, and it _shouldn't_ be a big deal, but he's seventeen and black and this is his third strike, so he's probably going to detention for at least a year." Courfeyrac rubbed his eyes. "And on top of all that, there so much stupid office politics going on right now, people being ridiculous about what order the departments get new laptops, and dragging what was supposed to be a half-hour meeting out to almost two hours--seriously, how do they have the time for this shit?”

"I don't understand how anyone there has time to even breathe," Enjolras said, picking up Courfeyrac's feet and sliding onto the couch underneath them. "You have  _ so much _ on your plate. Every case you get, you have the child, the foster parents, the biological parents . . ."

"Sometimes not living in the same place," Courfeyrac added. On the other side of the room, the TV launched into a very loud body wash commercial, and he glared at it. "And then if you have more than one kid in a family, they may be in different foster homes, which means another set of foster parents, plus possibly another biological parent to meet with." He sighed. "I don't mind that part of it, though; I mean, I'm insanely busy, but I  _ like _ talking with people, helping them get the help they need, coordinating people so everyone understands each other and things get worked out."

Courfeyrac's eyes flickered around the room, lighting on the TV, the walls, the ceiling. He ran a hand through his dark hair. "And I even understand that I'm not going to be everyone's favorite person, and some of my bio parents are just not going to believe that I'm trying to do what's best for their kid--it's understandable, I'm helping take their children away from them. I  _ get  _ it, I do. But it's still hard, having so many people hate you."

His eyes finally met Enjolras's, and for a brief moment, his face showed how run down he was. Just as quickly, he changed his somber expression for an exaggerated pout. "And I slept on my neck funny last night--which, okay, was my own fault for falling asleep with my pillow folded up weird because I had headphones in--but it's been hurting  _ all day _ ."

"Come here," Enjolras beckoned, pushing Courfeyrac's feet off his lap. Courfeyrac, grinning, clambered off the couch to sit on the floor between Enjolras's feet. Enjolras set his hands on his shoulders and started to knead, his thumbs feeling out the knots of tension--first in his shoulders and upper back, then, more gently, moving up to the nape of his neck. Courfeyrac closed his eyes and tipped his head back, sighing softly.

The TV went back to the coverage of the game, and Enjolras took one hand off Courfeyrac's neck to grab the remote and turn it off. The apartment fell into blissful silence, broken only by Courfeyrac's contented humming as Enjolras's hands worked out the tension in his neck.

"God, that felt good," he said after a minute, when Enjolras let his hands to fall his shoulders. "Thanks." He dropped his head onto Enjolras's knee, eyes still closed. 

Enjolras ran a hand through his hair. He wanted to say,  _ You should quit that job. I know you're good at it, but it's not good for you. It's wearing you thin--the stress, and the anger and resentment, and all the huge problems you're never going to be able to fix. Go into law like you'd planned, where your energy will still do great things, but where you don't have to see all the victims of the system, all the people you can't completely help. Because you fall in love too easily, and it's hurting you. _

But he couldn't say any of that--because he knew that Courfeyrac really did love what he was doing, and that he didn't feel like he  _ could _ leave. For some of these kids, he was the only thing standing between them and a system that was so mechanical in its care that it often ended up destroying the lives of those it tried to protect. And as much as Enjolras wanted to argue that it didn't matter, when the job was hurting Courfeyrac, he couldn't convince even himself.

So he just said, "You should get a better pillow."

"And lose my excuse to complain?"

"You don't need an excuse," Enjolras said, and maybe some of his inner distress came out in his voice, because Courfeyrac opened his eyes and turned his head to look up at his friend. "You know you don't, right?" Enjolras continued. "You can always vent to me, or--or ask for help, or whatever."

"Thanks," Courfeyrac said again. He rested his head on Enjolras's knee again for a moment, sighing contentedly. 

In the quiet, Enjolras's stomach rumbled loudly. "We should probably think about dinner," Courfeyrac mumbled. Then his head shot up. "Oh, crap, you have that thing tonight! Sorry, I said I would start dinner so you'd have something to eat before you left and I forgot. How soon do you have to leave? We can do pasta."

Enjolras checked his watch and saw that he had nineteen minutes before he needed to be out the door. "It's okay," he told Courfeyrac. "I'll have a sandwich."

"Crap, I'm sorry," Courfeyrac said again. "Someday I'll get my shit together, I swear."

Enjolras, half out of his seat, paused to squeeze Courfeyrac's shoulders. "You are every bit as together as you need to be."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I updated this one! This chapter is . . . basically just more of the same thing I always seem to write? I'm not sure why I'm fixated on stress relief but oh well. Maybe my goal for the next chapter should be to branch out a bit.
> 
> This was for the prompt "Touching parts of the body not usually handled by strangers." (i.e. face, feet, inside forearms, nape of neck, etc.). Kind of a creepy sounding subject--as many in this list are!


	9. coucher

It had been a long day. Combeferre, insistent on his morning routine even when they'd just be in the car all day and there's be no one to notice that he hadn't showered or shaved, woke up a four-thirty; by five, Enjolras was up and collecting all the things he'd neglected to pack up the night before. At five-forty, Courfeyrac rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face, and by six they were on the road. The plan had been to drive ten hours, not counting stops, and check in at the beach house by dinner time. The plan hadn't accounted for a two-hour traffic jam around Baltimore or a flat tire on the winding, middle-of-nowhere county route about an hour from their destination. It was well after dark when they pulled up at the little cottage with the sagging porch that the map said was #8 even if there were no posted numbers in sight to confirm it.

It took five minutes of experimentation with the key before the old lock finally clicked open ("you got to really jiggle her," the man at the office had told them) and they got to see their home for the next six days. Slightly musty-smelling, with couches from the more troubling parts of the seventies and mildewy artwork from a generation earlier, it was everything Combeferre had predicted a "cheep week rental SEPT ONLY" would be. Courfeyrac would've been delighted, if he weren't absolutely dead from fifteen hours of sharing the backseat of a car with only approximate air conditioning with three sleeping bags, five pillows, and a week's worth of groceries.

"Move everything in and then dinner?" Combeferre suggested, leaning against the doorframe limply.

Courfeyrac and Enjolras's eyes met.

"Dinner first and _then_ move everything in?" Enjolras suggested hopefully. Combeferre frowned and opened his mouth to make a counterargument.

"It doesn't take three people to make veggie burgers," Courfeyrac pointed out. "You work on dinner and we'll bring the stuff in, and we'll get everything done and still not die prematurely from starvation."

As Combeferre started on supper with a great deal of concerned noises about the cleanness of the cupboards and sink, plus some grumbled swearing at the stove, Enjolras and Courfeyrac delved into the other parts of the cabin. There were two bedrooms, as advertised, and they even had sheets on the beds (although Enjolras and Courfeyrac agreed they'd done well to pack the sleeping bags just in case). Courfeyrac distributed the sleeping bags and pillows onto the appropriate beds while Enjolras went back out to the car for duffel bags

"You might need to leave Ferre's bag in the living room," he called to Enjolras on flicking on the light in the second bedroom. "There is _literally_ no floor space in this room." He squeezed along the foot-wide gap between the full-size bed and the wall to place Combeferre's pillows at the head of the bed. "No closet either," he observed. "Maybe we can push the bed over?"

"The living room is fine for tonight," Combeferre answered from the kitchen.

The lack of storage space proved to be a cabin-wide phenomenon. The kitchen had three small cupboards, all bizarrely placed around the room just at Courfeyrac's head-height, so he could only reach the bottom shelf in each. After walking into the corner of another one in an attempt to get out of Combeferre's way, he settled for leaving the groceries on the table in the living/dining room for Enjolras, who not only was eight inches talller than Courfeyrac but also had a talent for predicting Combeferre's patterns of movement, to sort out.

They'd decided unanimously to leave all the beach things in the car until morning (or possibly, given the amount of space in the cabin and the definitely not weather-proof porch, for the whole week), so while Enjolras finished up with the groceries, Courfeyrac decided to scout out the bathroom. It was . . . not as horrible as he'd feared.

"No cockroaches," he reported, and from the kitchen heard a weak cheer of relief. "No snails either. Or squirrels. There's a decided lack of wildlife in general in here." He peeked into the shower. "On the other hand, there is a hole in the wall that looks like it goes through to the bedroom. And, um, a bunch of sand in the tub."

"I can live with that, if there's no insects," Enjolras called back.

"There's a lot of mildew, though." He frowned and checked under the sink, sighing in relief when he found what he was looking for. Maybe he wouldn't spend the week at half lung capacity after all. "But there's some lysol in here; maybe we can clean it up a bit."

"Tomorrow," Combeferre called. "Dinner will be ready in approximately fifty-six seconds."

The table was wobbly, even with a stack of magazines under one leg, and Enjolras discovered that the screen on the window above it was ripped open at one corner. But at almost ten o'clock at night, veggie burgers and tortilla chips tasted like the best food imaginable, and Combeferre--bless his soul forever--had started water for hot chocolate, and Courfeyrac couldn't bring himself to care about the huge crane fly and four moths circling the dirty light fixture above their heads.

After dinner, Courfeyrac washed the dishes and Combeferre dried and put them away, since he was the tallest among them. Enjolras, elbows propped on the table, put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes.

"It's only ten o'clock," he groaned, "but I feel like it's four in the morning."

"I think I'm going to bed once we're done here," Combeferre admitted.

"Let's go down to the ocean first," Courfeyrac suggested. "Just for a minute. We drove all day to get here, it would be a shame to just go to bed straight away."

"The ocean will be there in the morning, Courf. I don't want to travel another inch today."

"A walk might be nice, though," Combeferre mused. "I need to stretch my legs."

Of course, Enjolras agreed to accompany them once it was decided that the other two were going. They consulted the terrible photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a map they'd been given, got the flashlight from the glove compartment of Combeferre's car, and started off toward the ocean.

For once in their day, something went right: After a few minutes of stumbling over a root-riddled path through the woods, they came out onto open grass and a narrow, paved road that led down to the beach. Leaving their shoes where the sand overtook the asphalt, they walked barefoot across the cool sand to the top of the beach's slope, where they could watch the waves roll in onto the deserted beach.

The sky was clear and full of stars, with a half moon way up in the sky behind them, and the ocean was a startling huge as it was every time Courfeyrac saw it. He wiggled his toes, burying his feet in the sand. Combeferre put his hands in his pockets and closed his eyes, some of the tension leaving his shoulders with a long, steady breath. A steady, cold breeze was coming off the water, and Enjolras pulled the elastic from his hair and shook out his curls, letting the wind lift them off the back of his neck. Courfeyrac rolled up his jeans and waded out into the water, just far enough that the most powerful waves hit halfway up his calves but each receeding wave left his feet behind, with the wet sand draining out beneath them with the water.

"This was a good idea," Combeferre said quietly, after several long minutes.

"It was," Enjolras agreed.

"Ready to head back now?"

Courfeyrac turned from the waves and joined the other two on the sand. "I--" he started to say, but his sentence was cut off by a huge yawn, and he left it at that.

"Me too," Enjolras laughed.

Back in the cabin, they all got ready for bed--even though it wasn't yet eleven--by unspoken agreement. After some confusion about toothpaste and mouthwash, they turned off the lights in the rest of the cabin, and separated to their rooms.

"Which bunk do you want?" Enjolras asked Courfeyrac, as Courfeyrac draped his pants--which had gotten caught by a wave after all--over the back of a chair.

"Um . . . bottom? If you don't mind. I'm fine with either."

"No, that's fine, I can sleep anywhere." Enjolras tossed his pillow and sleeping bag up to the top bunk and looked around for his phone. "Actually, I don't really need this," he remarked on finding it. "It's not like we're getting up for anything in particular."

"God, I hope that's not the plan."

"I feel . . . I don't know, naked or something, going to bed without it, though. You know? I guess it's been almost ten years now that I've always--"

Enjolras was interrupted by a tremendous crash in the next bedroom, like the sound of an oak bookshelf being tumbled down a flight of stairs. He and Courfeyrac froze, staring at each other.

"Ferre? Are you okay?" Enjolras called. There was no answer.

A few seconds later, Combeferre appeared in the doorway to their room, in a pair of old gym shorts and the ratty Columbia exchange 2003 T-shirt he still wore as pajamas. "We're going to need to adjust our sleeping arrangements," he said wryly.

"What happened?" Enjolras asked, but Courfeyrac was already jumping up to see.

In the other room, the giant bed was now an innovative sloping bed, with the plywood sheet that formed its base detached from two of its legs and apparently snapped down the middle, so that half the mattress sagged down sharply and the other half lay limply on the floor. The headboard, which appeared to have been balanced behind the mattress, leaned threateningly over the wreckage.

"I didn't do _anything,_ " Combeferre said, his tone teetering between amusement and frustration. "I lay down and it was _fine,_ for maybe three minutes. Then, completely out of the blue, it collapses underneath me. I swear, if that guy tries to charge us for this . . ."

"Don't worry about it tonight," Enjolras told him, throwing an arm around his shoulders and pulling him toward the other room. "We'll figure it out in the morning."

Courfeyrac gathered up Combeferre's sleeping bag and pillows from the destroyed bed and followed, flicking off the lights. "There's just the wicker loveseats in the other room, so I guess we'll have to do two of us in the bottom bunk? I don't mind sharing."

Combeferre shrugged. "I don't care."

"I don't care either," Enjolras said. He turned to Combeferre. "But you actually do, don't you?"

Combeferre blushed. "Yes," he admitted. "It's not that I--I just like my space. It's an introversion thing, I guess."

"It's fine," Enjolras repeated. "I really don't care. As long as you take top bunk so if one of us pushes the other off the bed in the night, we won't have far to fall." He pulled his sleeping bag off the top bunk and he and Courfeyrac negotiated an arrangement of the bedding where with any luck they wouldn't be freezing or roasting during the night. Enjolras took the spot against the wall and Courfeyrac turned off the lights and carefully felt his way around their suitcases to the bed.

"Good night," Combeferre's sleepy voice floated down from the bunk above, as Courfeyrac settled onto the bed next to Enjolras.

"Good night," Enjolras echoed through a yawn.

"Good night." Courfeyrac rolled over onto his stomach, doing his best not to knee Enjolras in the kidneys in the process. He closed his eyes and let himself start to drift off. The room was starting to get chilly, but under the covers, with another person's body heat at his side, it was very warm. Enjolras shifted slightly, the mattress creaking underneath him, and ended up with his back against Courfeyrac's arm. The gentle pressure, a wordless reminder that someone was here with him, was utterly relaxing, and Courfeyrac was asleep in minutes.

He awoke twice in the night to Enjolras's elbow in his ribs, and once to find Enjolras's arm flung over him--but with the quiet rhythm of another person's breathing in his ear, steady as the ocean, he didn't find it hard to get back to sleep. And when Enjolras woke up the next morning to find Courfeyrac snuggled up against him, his face buried in his shoulder, and didn't complain or tease him about it, Courfeyrac figured they were even.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i tried not to make it about stress but that ended up being a significant theme anyway? maybe this says something about me/my life, i don't know.
> 
> this prompt was "sharing a bed." (btw if you have suggestions for chapters, you are by all means welcome to send them to me! you can find me at takethewatch.tumblr.com)


	10. blague

“I found you!” It was hard to pack much triumph into a whisper, but Courfeyrac managed.  He leaned on the side of the study carrel, propping his chin on his hands.  “I thought you had one of these reserved--don’t you usually work there?  Or do the--” he glanced around, frowning at the dusty shelves “--the collected back issues of _Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation_ imbue the air in this part of the library with inspiration?”

It was worrying that it took Combeferre a full ten seconds to look up from the article he was reading and focus on Courfeyrac.  “What?”

“Why aren’t you at your usual carrel?”

“There wasn’t room to work,” Combeferre said mournfully.  “It’s too full of books.”

Courfeyrac was unable to stifle a hysterical giggle, and glanced around guiltily for avenging librarians.  But this part of the library was deserted--no one used print journals anymore, so hardly anyone went here--and tucked way in the back corner of the second level of the basement.  It had certainly taken Courfeyrac long enough to find him here; he’d started searching nearly an hour ago.  Anyone less persistent would have given up. Which, he reflected, was probably why Combeferre had chosen it.

But any guilt Courfeyrac might have felt at disrupting his friend’s work melted away when he saw the glint of desperation in Combeferre’s eyes.

“There’s too much to do,” he whispered.

“For which class?”

“All of them.”

“I thought you finished your research paper for Ethics last weekend.  Wasn’t that your last thing?”

“Well yes, but then I have the process reflection for the other project in that class.  And another research paper for Epistomology that I changed my topic for halfway in and had to start entirely from scratch, and I have two physics exams next week that I haven’t even begun to study for.  And I have four lab reports to type up that I’ve had the handwritten notes for for weeks but I have to keep getting an extension on them because I just have _no time_.”  Combeferre’s voice cracked.

“You can do it,” Courfeyrac told him.  “I know you can.  You are the smartest person I know, Ferre.”

Combeferre shook his head.  “I can’t.  It’s impossible.”

“Do you want to take a break?  We can go get dinner.  Or fourth meal?  I’m not sure what it counts as when you eat at 8.”

“I don’t have time.  I have to finish these articles; I have to get an annotated bibliography to my professor by midnight, and that’s already a three-day extension.”  Combeferre turned back to his work, his hands shaking as he uncapped his highlighter.

“Ferre, you’re exhausted.  You need to take a break.”

“There’s no time, Courf.”

Courfeyrac frowned.  “This sounds cliche, but you need to take care of yourself.  You’re going to have a breakdown if you keep working like this.”

“Probably.”  Combeferre’s tone balanced on the edge of frenetic.  “But I _have_ to get this done.”

Courfeyrac was at a loss for words.  He desperately wanted to do _something_ to help Combeferre, but he didn’t know what he _could_ do.  He couldn’t do his work for him--not only would that be cheating, obviously, but theoretical physics so far out of his field of expertise that he barely recognized half the words when Combeferre told him what he was studying.  He couldn’t force him to take a break, and even if he did manage to convince him, he knew Combeferre--he would just stress about everything the whole time he was eating or walking or whatever they did.  If he had as much work as he said--and he probably did; Combeferre was brutally realistic about this stuff--taking a break would just make things worse.

So Courfeyrac did the only thing he could think of.  He went for puns.  “Come on, Combeferre,” he said, glancing down at the paper Combeferre had begun reflexively highlighting, aggressively slashing through topic sentences and key terms with uneven streaks of fluorescent yellow. “‘Reductionism and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Virtue’ shouldn’t be the . . . _highlight_ . . . of your evening.”

Combeferre raised his head and blinked at him.  His lips trembled, and for a minute Courfeyrac was terrified he was going to inexplicably start crying, and then his face collapsed into helpless laughter.  He bent over his books, shoulders shaking, trying to muffle the sound but failing completely.  

“Oh my god, Courf,” he gasped.  “That was the worst pun I’ve ever heard.  I’m not sure it even counts as a pun.”

Courfeyrac grinned.  “I thought it would _brighten_ your spirits.”

Combeferre shook with giggles. “Th--that’s not even the phrase.”

Puns were more Combeferre and Enjolras’s thing, honestly; Courfeyrac didn’t really get the point of them and got more enjoyment from his friends’ delight over them than over the joke form itself.  Maybe that was part of why he was so very bad at them.  But if terrible puns were what would get Combeferre to raise his head from his desk and relax his death-grip on the highlighter, Courfeyrac would pun away with all his might.

“I just think you’ve got too much on your _Plato_ ,” he offered, having exhausted the meager limits of what he could do with “highlighter” and resorting to philosophy in general.

Combeferre’s helpless wail of laughter echoed through the dusty stacks.  “That’s--I can’t even--how--”

“You thought you could Heidegger your--Heidegger in . . . shit.  I don’t know.”  Courfeyrac spread his hands helplessly.  “Sorry.  I tried.”

Combeferre clutched at his stomach.  “Stop,” he gasped.

“Okay, so.  You laughed at ‘you’ve got too much on your Plato,’” Courfeyrac said.  “Clearly, you’re not in full possession of your mental faculties and need a break.”

Combeferre sobered.  “I _can’t_ , Courf,” he said, almost apologetically.  “I can’t afford the time.”

"No, you can't," Courfeyrac agreed, and Combeferre, who had already turned back to his work, glanced back up at him, surprised.  “I know.  But Ferre, you can’t afford _not_ to take the time, either; there are limits even to what you can do.”  Combeferre sighed and leaned his head on the side of the carrel.  Courfeyrac reached over the top of it and ran his fingers through Combeferre’s hair.  “So, come with me to the Union,” he coaxed, rubbing circles at the base of Combeferre’s neck.  “Get some fresh air, move your legs, eat something real.  If you go the fifteen minutes it’ll take us to walk over there and order without talking about school, you can spend the time we eat telling me about your paper, talking out your ideas.  You’ll feel better physically, and you’ll be less stressed, and your research will be a lot more effective if you’ve talked things out beforehand.”

“I won’t be able to get everything done if I take a break,” Combeferre said, but Courfeyrac could tell he was beginning to relent.

“So you don’t get it all done,” Courfeyrac said, running his hand through Combeferre’s hair again.  It was slightly greasy, but Combeferre sighed softly as Courfeyrac’s fingers eased out the tangles, and Courfeyrac found he didn’t care how many days it’d been since he’d washed it.  “You turn in a slightly sub-par paper, or you get a B on your exam instead of an A.  You’ll lose your 4.0, but you’re not going to fail.  Why are you here, anyway?  To earn points, or to learn?”

“To learn.”

“And you are learning as much as you _possibly_ can, Combeferre.  You are working _so hard_ , and you're learning _so much_.  And you’re going to work hard tonight and learn a lot, and so who cares if you don’t get an A on everything.  That’s not the point--of any of it.”

“You’re right,” Combeferre sighed.  He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.  “I’m here to learn, not to play the academic game.  And I’m not going to learn very effectively if I’m half dead of stress.”

“Does that mean--”

“Yep.  You win.”  He leaned backward, resting his head against Courfeyrac’s side, and took a long breath, letting it out for what Courfeyrac knew was a slow count of five.   _In for three, out for five._  “Thanks for reminding me,” he murmured.  “It’s easy to forget.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not based on that original set of prompts at all; I wrote it for a completely different prompt, but then it fit in so well that I couldn't /not/ post it here.


	11. sutures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It certainly has been a while, hasn't it? But here is a new chapter . . . a ridiculously self-indulgent chapter, but really the whole fic is an exercise in self-indulgence, so whatever. ^_^ I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Content note: If you don't enjoy medical stuff (in particular, stuff about surgery), you might want to skip this one.

Combeferre claims the stitches don’t hurt, not that much. Combeferre is usually sensible about this kind of thing; not one to try to hide the fact that he doesn’t feel well or stubbornly deny that he needs medicine. And indeed, Courfeyrac has seen him take Advil at least twice since he had the surgery, and the hospital had sent h home with a few doses of something stronger he could take if he needed it. So when Combeferre says the incision doesn’t hurt much, Courfeyrac is inclined to take him at his word.

Still, his smile hasn’t quite been right, all afternoon.

They’ve been taking it easy, the three of them, making a Lazy Saturday of it in spite of Combeferre’s protests that it was a minor thing and really they don’t need to. To be honest, Courfeyrac pushed for the day off almost as much for his own and Enjolras’s sake as for Combeferre’s. It’s been a long month for all of them–courfeyrac working 50-some hours a week, Enjolras struggling to balance internship and studying for the bar, with this health scare from Combeferre on top of everything else–and while a day of lying on the couch in pajamas, watching SNL and eating potato chips isn’t going to solve any of their problems, it’s nice to at least take a break from it all.

But while Enjolras has finally melted into a mellow enough state of mind to let a political ad play and leave the obvious rant about superpacs unspoken, and Courfeyrac feels actually rested for the first time in months, Combeferre is still off. It’s little things: the tightness of his mouth when he’s not actively trying to look relaxed for their benefit. The long pauses when he doesn’t realize someone has asked him a question. Something’s distracting Combeferre, and he’s assured Courfeyrac more than once he’s not in pain–so that just means something else is wrong.

Courfeyrac waits and watches and tries in the meantime to do whatever he can to help, even if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s fighting.

The day is almost over by the time he figures it out. They started a movie (Courfeyrac and Combeferre went over Enjolras’s head an picked Return of the King) over dinner and now they’re sprawled out in front of it, Courfeyrac’s legs flung over Combeferre’s, Enjolras nodding, half asleep, on Combeferre’s shoulder.  After Frodo sends Sam away, Enjolras pushes himself up, rubbing his eyes, and hits pause.

“Sorry, have to use the bathroom.”

“We know you’re going off to cry, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac calls after him (half in attempt to distract from his own watery eyes).  “You don’t have to hide it from us; let it out.”

“Ha!”

When Enjolras comes back, Combeferre excuses himself.  “Since we’re stopped already, I’m going to take the dressing off.  They said to do it right before bed, but the tape is itching like crazy, so I’m calling it close enough.”

 _Is that it?_  Courfeyrac wonders as he gets up to find some ice cream to soothe his roiling emotions over Frodo and Sam’s relationship.   _He was just distracted by the itching?_ He hopes he’s found his answer, though he’s not 100% convinced yet.

Enjolras shuffles sleepily into the kitchen, brightening at the sight of the ice cream.  Under his influence, Courfeyrac’s small dish of ice cream becomes full-out cookie sundaes, with hot fudge and whipped cream.  Courfeyrac heads down the hall to see what Combeferre wants on his.

The bathroom door is half-ajar, and when Courfeyrac knocks on it, it swings open the rest of the way.

“Ferre?  Do you want--”  Courfeyrac breaks off.  Combeferre is leaning against the sink, trembling hands hovering over the bandage; in the privacy of the bathroom, his face is naked, showing all the tension and discomfort he’s been trying to hide all day.  “Are you okay?”

Combeferre shakes his head.  “I’m fine.  Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“You’re shaking,” Courfeyrac says flatly.  He steps across the threshold.  “What’s wrong?”

Combeferre sighs, letting his hands fall to his lap.  Courfeyrac waits silently, knowing the best way to get Combeferre to answer is to give him time.

“It’s just,” Combeferre says finally, “the stitches.  There’s stuff inside my body that’s not supposed to be there--and I know it’s just sterile thread, and it’s really just on the surface, and . . .”  He trails off, his shoulders tense.  “I can’t really put words to it, but it bothers me.”  He laughs shakily.  “I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Courfeyrac says softly.  He puts a hand on Combeferre’s shoulder, squeezing.  “You’re allowed to have the occasional moment of irrationality.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it.”  Combeferre smiles, but it isn’t a smile.  “I’m half afraid that when I take the bandage off I won’t be able to handle it, and I’ll freak out and rip the stitches out or something.”

“I’ll do it,” Courfeyrac offers.  “You can close your eyes; you won’t see a thing.”

“I should do it myself, I shouldn’t--”

“Why?  You don’t want to, and I don’t mind helping you.  Let me do it.”

Combeferre sighs and closes his eyes.  “Okay.”

Courfeyrac tries to be as gentle as he can, but the tape tugs at Combeferre’s skin and he can see him wince.  “Sorry,” he mutters.

“It’s fine.”  Combeferre takes a deep breath.  “Really, it doesn’t hurt that much; it’s just knowing that it’s there that bothers me.”

The rest of the tape pulls off easily, leaving behind a patch of gummy residue and a jagged incision, the black thread of the stitches looking sharp and leggy, like some kind of mechanical centipede.  Courfeyrac swallows hard and is grateful he caught Combeferre before he had to do this himself.  “What now?” he asks. 

Combeferre’s voice is strained.  “I’m supposed to wash the area gently with soap and water, then put aquaphor on the incision and tape a bandage over it again.”

“I can do that.”  Courfeyrac runs warm water and pulls a clean washcloth from the cupboard.  Combeferre stiffens when he first dabs at the incision, but he gradually relaxes.  Courfeyrac does his best to keep up a continuous patter--whatever he can think of to give Combeferre something to focus on other than the gash in his skin.

It only takes a few minutes to clean and rebandage the incision, and then Combeferre is standing up, blinking as his eyes readjust to the bright light.  He hazards a glance in the mirror and Courfeyrac thinks his shoulders go down, just a millimeter or two, at the sight of the small, neat dressing, much less overwhelming than the wad of gauze that had been initially taped down on the incision to provide pressure against bleeding.

“Thanks,” Combeferre says.  “I really appreciate it.”

“Anything else I can do to help?”

Combeferre shook his head.  “The distractions all day have helped.  And just admitting it--talking about it helps a little, too.”

“Would an ice cream sundae help?  That’s what I initially came down here to ask you about.”

Combeferre smiles.  “Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt.”


End file.
